Friday, November 18, 2016

The Struggle to Become a Hands Off Parent

JT has been out of the public brick and mortar school system for nine years now. The first two years at home we used a public cyber school, switching over to traditional homeschooling when he entered 5th grade. We are now about 1/3 of the way through his junior year in high school. Things have mostly gotten easier as the years have gone by. But now there is a new problem I am encountering; I have to learn to step back and let him take the lead.

All those years ago when JT first came home to learn, I needed to plan and arrange things to make it possible. Using the cyber school, we had curriculum we needed to follow and I was the one to make that happen. Switching over to homeschooling, I had even more control over the things we did for learning. I rarely used package curriculum, instead choosing to develop my own plans using a variety of materials. In all of this, I was the one always saying, "Get your work done." Not much different than moms of public school students, except in my case, I was also assigning the work. Now that JT is taking classes at the community college, my role is changing. The only subjects at home this year are geography and algebra 2. Everything else is being outsourced either to the community college or private lessons. Where do I fit in as homeschooling mom?

My number one role appears to be transportation. I've tried to work on helping JT with his time management skills as he learns to juggle his classwork. Unfortunately this is turning into more nagging than teaching. It's just so hard to stop telling him to do his work when it has been my primary role for nine years. Up until now, I was expected to lay out the daily plan and require things be finished before we moved on to fun things. I am no longer the one giving the assignments so I don't even know everything he needs to do at home. The fact that he is a chronic procrastinator makes it stressful for me to see him not working when I know there are things that need to be done.

My husband told me I need to let him do this on his own so that he can learn from his mistakes while he's still at home taking classes with relatively small risks. I'm trying, but it's been a difficult transition. This week JT and I had a bit of a blow up over his work and I finally decided to go completely hands off. He had his final in English comp on Tuesday and a quiz in music theory and I knew he was not doing much prep work. Tuesday night he came home from the final happy. He said, "I just sat down and started writing and out came a great essay." No prep. Once again, his procrastination and lack of preparation had not caused him to suffer any consequences. Granted, we don't have the results yet, but I know how this always goes. The music theory quiz was yesterday. After some cramming in the car on the way to the lesson, he pulled off a 100%.

So what have I learned? Nagging is not necessary because JT will somehow manage to pull success from nowhere? I guess that's not it... Nagging is not necessary because all it does is bring stress to all of us. If he works best with the deadline looming, maybe that's how he has to work. I just can't watch and everyone will be happy.

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Why Homeschooling?

Sometimes desperation leads to great new things. What started out as an escape from an unsuitable public school situation has turned into a wonderful adventure off the beaten path. We have tried a variety of schooling methods and have decided homeschooling is the best fit for our family.